muse: n. a source of inspiration

Links You’ll Love – 3-15-13

Animoto’s got educator accounts again! If you haven’t used it before, Animoto is an awesome website where you can upload a bunch of photos, choose your background music, and it makes a great slide show for you. They had discontinued educator accounts for a while…but they’re back. As an educator, you can get a free PRO account, which allows you to create videos longer than 30 seconds.

I don’t know about you, but I think these awesome NASA Pod transports look an awful lot like what George Jetson used (oy… I am dating myself). Tel Aviv is looking to become the first city where you can zoom around in some ultra cool two-person vehicles.

The World Digital Library is a collection of primary materials from all over the world. There are maps, newspapers photographs, illustrations and more.

Remember flash cards? There are a lot of online sites to create and review flash cards. Check out StudyStack, where you can use flash cards created by others or create your own.

I love this site! Create text messages as if they were sent by fictional characters. So fun! Text messages can be saved for future editing, downloading or embedding in other sites.

Every teacher knows that maintaining a classroom library can be a chore. Book Retriever, an iOS app, promises to make that job easier. The $.99 app uses the book’s ISBN code to generate a listing, keeps track of which students have “checked out” which books, and can even email overdue reminders.

If you’re using Croak.it please complete this survey to help improve the product. It’s nice when the developers care what we teachers think!

About

Debbie Harris is the director of educational technology at the Sager Solomon Schechter Day School in Northbrook, IL and teaches religious school at Lakeside Congregation for Reform Judaism. Involved in Jewish education for over thirty years, she received an education degree from Northwestern University with a concentration in instructional media. She is skilled in using and teaching desktop publishing, video editing, presentation and animation software; and consults and presents regularly on integrating technology into Judaic studies. Her students podcast, blog, edit video and create claymations. She co-chaired the technology track for CAJE 33 in Vermont, is a SMART Certified Trainer for SMART Notebook version 10 for both Macintosh and Windows, and a 2011 recipient of the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.

When not learning, teaching or writing about technology, Debbie likes to craft. While not particularly highly skilled at anything, she likes to knit, do calligraphy, sew, paint fabric and just generally play with fun toys like scrapbooking supplies, watercolors, and anything with texture. She is incredibly proud of her two daughters; Lori, who teaches English at a community college; and Allie, who is the associate director of the URJ’s Camp Newman in California.